Kit of the Month – The Dream Police Kit

Kit of the Month

The Dream Police Kit

This vintage gold sparkle kit comes to us from Minnetonka, Minnesota, reader Rob Gilboe, who explains that the set was custom-built by drum tech Paul Jamieson and manufacturer Patrick Foley for former Cheap Trick drummer Bun E. Carlos in the late 1970s. According to Gilboe, Carlos took the kit on the road during a yearlong Cheap Trick tour in 1979, as the group was riding the success of their platinum albums Cheap Trick at Budokan and Dream Police.

Gilboe, who spoke with Carlos about the drumset, says Bun E. met Jamieson and Foley on the West Coast during the ’70s, while they were restoring old Radio King snares for session players in the area. “When Jamieson and Foley approached Bun E. about making him a snare in 1978, he said, ‘Why not do an entire kit?’” Gilboe explains. “They started building the kit in October of 1978, and Bun E. used it on tour from April to December of 1979.”

The kit comprises a 14×26 bass drum, 9×13 and 12×14 toms, and a 16×16 floor tom, and originally came with two 5.5×14 snares. “This number-40 snare is the only surviving snare from this kit,” says Gilboe. Two coffee cans of brass shavings and fifteen coats of lacquer went into the finish.

And although drummers may want to play the same tubs Carlos used with Cheap Trick, it’ll be difficult finding a Jamieson/Foley set, according to Gilboe. “In 2015,” he says, “Jamieson confirmed with me that he made only one or two other complete kits, and fewer than one hundred snares.”

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